LETTER: Connect Our Future is a bad idea

Published: Tuesday, March 5, 2013 at 10:42 AM.

As I read the front-page article in your Friday, March 1 Edition concerning the “Connect Our Future” Consortium project I was not surprised, but I am concerned that you published such a one-sided story on this really bad idea. As a Concerned Citizen who was at the Lake Norman RPO (Rural Planning Organization) meeting where this idea was first shown to anybody connected to Cleveland County, I observed the arrogance and deception of Centralina CoG (Council of Governments) and NCDOT employees. After a 45 minute roll-out presentation by a NCDOT representative, with approximately 30 Power-point slides to the Planners in the region, the Centralina employees recognized the apparent discomfort of those in attendance, and these unelected bureaucrats informed the group, “We understand that some of this may seem politically uncomfortable, but don’t be concerned, we’ll get it all ‘polished up’ before ANY elected officials see it.”

And when they presented it to our elected officials at the next meeting of the TAC (Transportation Advisory Committee) of the RPO they had certainly “polished it up”. The whole presentation was condensed to about 5 to 7 minutes in length and consisted of 5 or 6 Power-point slides, all of which highlighted that they had “already won” the $4.9 million HUD grant and it would be a mistake not to approve the plan to go forward with the Consortium. The only member of the TAC to try to slow down this miscarriage was our Cleveland County Commission Representative to the TAC, Mr. Johnny Hutchins. But he was buffaloed by the rest of the TAC who couldn’t believe he was ready to walk away from the $4.9 million in “free” federal money. At that meeting nothing was mentioned that the project also requires $3+ million in local matching funds, which I noticed wasn’t mentioned in your article either.

I just hope that my fellow Citizens of Cleveland County and the rest of the Region being used in this ill-conceived project will look behind the curtain and see that the Wizard, in the form of Centralina CoG is using the big-government machine of central planning to steal our Freedoms and move away from the concepts of personal Liberty and responsibility. I’m becoming more concerned every day how the United States in less than 2oo years became the most prosperous Society in the history of mankind because of the Freedoms, endowed by Our Creator and guaranteed by our Constitution, and now has been in an accelerated state of recession for the last 25+ years as the central planners have slowly and steadily been removing those same Freedoms, one bureaucratic nudge at a time.

As I read the front-page article in your Friday, March 1 Edition concerning the “Connect Our Future” Consortium project I was not surprised, but I am concerned that you published such a one-sided story on this really bad idea. As a Concerned Citizen who was at the Lake Norman RPO (Rural Planning Organization) meeting where this idea was first shown to anybody connected to Cleveland County, I observed the arrogance and deception of Centralina CoG (Council of Governments) and NCDOT employees. After a 45 minute roll-out presentation by a NCDOT representative, with approximately 30 Power-point slides to the Planners in the region, the Centralina employees recognized the apparent discomfort of those in attendance, and these unelected bureaucrats informed the group, “We understand that some of this may seem politically uncomfortable, but don’t be concerned, we’ll get it all ‘polished up’ before ANY elected officials see it.”

And when they presented it to our elected officials at the next meeting of the TAC (Transportation Advisory Committee) of the RPO they had certainly “polished it up”. The whole presentation was condensed to about 5 to 7 minutes in length and consisted of 5 or 6 Power-point slides, all of which highlighted that they had “already won” the $4.9 million HUD grant and it would be a mistake not to approve the plan to go forward with the Consortium. The only member of the TAC to try to slow down this miscarriage was our Cleveland County Commission Representative to the TAC, Mr. Johnny Hutchins. But he was buffaloed by the rest of the TAC who couldn’t believe he was ready to walk away from the $4.9 million in “free” federal money. At that meeting nothing was mentioned that the project also requires $3+ million in local matching funds, which I noticed wasn’t mentioned in your article either.

I just hope that my fellow Citizens of Cleveland County and the rest of the Region being used in this ill-conceived project will look behind the curtain and see that the Wizard, in the form of Centralina CoG is using the big-government machine of central planning to steal our Freedoms and move away from the concepts of personal Liberty and responsibility. I’m becoming more concerned every day how the United States in less than 2oo years became the most prosperous Society in the history of mankind because of the Freedoms, endowed by Our Creator and guaranteed by our Constitution, and now has been in an accelerated state of recession for the last 25+ years as the central planners have slowly and steadily been removing those same Freedoms, one bureaucratic nudge at a time.